


For The Merc Who Has Everything

by Crockzilla, Vixen13



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel (Comics), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Crying, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-07 14:44:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12843396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crockzilla/pseuds/Crockzilla, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vixen13/pseuds/Vixen13
Summary: Wade is so happy to be spending the holidays with his husband in their new house. If only he could stop having these weird dreams.





	1. Chapter 1

“I lost you!”

Wade looked up from where he was crawling along the wall of their new living room to see his tiny hubs come bounding down the stairs. “I’ve been right here,” he teased, “trying to find a goddamn outlet within reach of these goddamn lights.”

“Don’t we have an extension cord?” Peter asked, poking around among the boxes of ornaments that covered their couch, waiting to be placed on the moderately-sized-but-very-fluffy tree that stood in their front window. 

“I don’t want us to trip, though,” Wade fretted, taking the extension cord that Peter offered him.

Peter shrugged. “We’ll tape it down.”

“On the carpet?” Wade snarked as he plugged the extension cord into the wall.

“We’ll get one of those rubber things, quit fussing and come here,” Peter demanded, holding his arms out. Wade acquiesced, as he always did with his favorite person, wrapping his arms around Peter and tucking his small love’s head under his chin as they gazed at their tree, now illuminated with tiny white lights.

“Nice,” Peter said, softly.

“Did you find it?” Wade asked, remembering.

“Yes!” Peter said, disentangling himself to pick up a small picture-frame ornament that he’d brought from upstairs. “It was stuck in with the Halloween stuff for some reason.”

Peter slid his arm back around Wade’s waist and held up the frame, which contained a picture of the two of them on their wedding day. It looked like a candid shot, because neither of them were looking directly at the camera, but they were both laughing, and it looked like Wade was holding Peter to his side, just as he was now. They fit so well together this way, like weird human puzzle pieces.

“Who took this one?” Wade asked, rubbing his thumb over the raised ceramic snowflakes that decorated the frame.

“I don’t remember,” Peter frowned. “Harry? Or did he give us the ornament?”

Wade shrugged. “Whatever – look at you, cutie-patootie.”

“ _ You  _ are,” Peter said, planting a kiss on his cheek. “So handsome.”

Wade had to admit – he looked good in a suit, all blonde hair and blue eyes, or maybe he’d just been glowing because he was super happy. Peter seemed to be, his sweet brown eyes lit up with laughter. He looked from the picture to his guy in real life and saw a very similar expression on his face. And truth be told, Wade felt pretty glowy himself. It was like those two happy fellas in the picture had jumped out of the frame and just kept on being happy together.

“Do you like how these balls are hanging?” Wade asked as they carefully placed their colorful, glittery ball ornaments on the lighted branches.

Peter sighed, long-suffering. “Yes, dear, I like how your balls are hanging. How about mine?”

Wade lovingly groped his sweetie as Peter reached up to a high branch. “Feels good to me. Will we still be allowed to enjoy ball-related holiday humor when we have kids running around?”

“Well, we’re going to foster to adopt, so we’ll just make sure we get some older kids who are already desensitized to ball-humor,” Peter said, suddenly looking a little cautious. “If that’s still what we want to do, of course.”

Wade put down his ornaments to hold Peter’s pretty face in his hands. “Of course it is – if that’s what  _ you  _ want to do, Dr. Parker-Wilson.”

Peter smiled that beautiful, content smile that thrilled Wade every single time he was able to make it appear. “That  _ is  _ what I want to do, Mrs. Dr. Parker-Wilson.”

Wade hummed at the title as he leaned in to kiss his husband – that was all he ever remembered wanting to be called, and he couldn’t imagine anything nicer.

*~*~*

“They seem nice.”

“Yeah,” Wade agreed, taking Peter’s coat to hang up on the rack inside their door. “A little, you know, hetero, but nice.”

“I’m not really interested in a borrow-cups-of-sugar type relationship with our neighbors anyway, so,” Peter shrugged, putting on the kettle for tea because wow was it cold out there.

“Yeah, best to just be the exciting gay neighbors and not super-best-buds,” Wade agreed. “What were their names again?”

Peter let out an affectionate but indignant huff, then paused, frowning. “Huh. I don’t remember.”

They looked at each other, then burst out laughing, and then Wade tried to say something but the sight of Peter laughing was so cute it just made him laugh more, which made Peter laugh more, and it was a vicious cycle until they were both wheezing and wiping at their eyes. 

“Jesus, we’re  _ terrible, _ ” Peter giggled, shaking his head.

“It’s fine, we can just say ‘Hey neighbor,’” Wade assured. “I saw it on a sitcom.”

“You didn’t leave all of the cookies over there, did you?” Peter asked, suddenly stricken.

Wade looked around – he didn’t remember doing so, but he also didn’t see the cookie tin. “Well – I’ll just have to make some more right now.”

“No,” Peter said in that way that really meant he hoped Wade would do just that, “it’s getting late, we have to work tomorrow—“

“It’ll take five minutes,” he insisted, stopping Peter’s protests with a kiss. “Now – be a good boy and grab the eggs for Daddy.”

“Yes, sir,” Peter said with a delicious little smile that meant neither of them would be going to sleep any time soon.

*~*~*

“How was work?”

“Good,” Wade said, brow furrowing a bit as he tried to remember anything specific from his work day. “Good, same old same old. You?”

Peter shrugged, sipping his gift-wrapping-wine. “Same. Did you find out about days off?”

Oh, shit. “Uh,” Wade stalled as he willed his brain to think, “I think I have Xmas Eve and Xmas Day  _ and  _ Boxing Day.”

Peter raised an eyebrow as he took the scissors Wade handed him. “You think?”

“I’ll double-check tomorrow, I promise,” Wade assured as he held the colorful wrapping paper steady for Peter to cut.

“I’m not trying to nag,” Peter said, “I just know May’s gonna want to know soon ‘cause she and Ben need to ask off.”

“Well, tell them to just take the week,” Wade suggested, handing Peter a strip of tape, “and if I end up not having those days off, I’ll just call in with violent food poisoning.”

“Can you do that?” Peter gave him an affectionately skeptical look.

“Sure!” Wade swaggered. “What’re they gonna do, fire me?”

“If you get fired we’ll have to sell our bodies,” Peter shook his head as he carefully folded in the extra wrapping paper and taped it down.

Wade laughed, but –  _ would  _ they? Could he get fired? He tried to think through their financial situation and also what his responsibilities were at work, but they just wouldn’t stay in his brain.

“Is it White Christmas night?” he asked Peter to distract himself.

Peter rolled his eyes. “That movie is dumb.”

“But you love it.”

“I do, as long as we can try doing the stair-thing from ‘Mandy’ down our new stairs.”

“I see no way that could go horribly wrong and lead to an ER visit,” Wade agreed, earning himself a kiss.

“I don’t care when you have off work,” Peter said, nuzzling into his neck, “as long as I get to spend Xmas with you.”

Wade hummed happily, immediately falling into his fella’s romantic mood. “Oh, baby – right back atcha.”

*~*~*

Of course it was the mall Santa that brought a million hawk-looking, psychic aliens through a space-time rift under JC Penny’s. Of  _ course  _ it was. When would people fucking  _ learn? _

“Aren’t you glad we got paired up on this fun adventure, Webs?”

Deadpool was pretty darn familiar with Spidey’s expressions at this point, so he could clearly see him roll his eyes as he hung upside down from the second story of the mall, shooting webbing as fast as he could at the scaly, flying monstrosities that kept pouring into the atrium. 

“Hey, we’re here, too!” he heard Kate shout from where she and Clint were rapidly firing arrows at the things. Luckily, they’d gotten all of the civvies out (and well, most of them had run as soon as Santa started chanting in Mordor-speak, and boy did Deadpool wish he’d witnessed the exodus of screaming suburbanites who had dragged their kids to the mall to sit on a stranger’s lap).

“Come on, Santa,” Deadpool cajoled as he dodged the fake plastic tree that Santa hurled at his head, “I’m  _ really  _ trying not to kill people in front of Spidey today.”

_ Today,  _ said Yellow.

_ Just kill this creepy motherfucker,  _ White insisted as Santa started spewing green bile, eyes rolling back in his head, so, okay, possessed.

“You make a compelling point,” he admitted to White, then slashed through Santa with both katanas so that he fell into four fairly neat little clumps in the fake snow, right underneath the shiny banner that read “Pictures with Santa!”

“ _ Damnit _ , Deadpool!” he heard Spidey shout furiously from where he was webbing twenty of the hawk-aliens high above the atrium, avoiding the weird psychic blasts that came out of their freaky bird mouths. “We might’ve needed him to get  _ rid  _ of these things!”

Deadpool felt a surge of shame that he quickly pushed down – Spidey hated him anyway, what did one more epic slaying matter? “No biggie, I’ll go in and close the rift,” he called over his shoulder as he headed toward the main entrance of JC Penny’s slaughtering hawk-aliens and dodging psychic blasts as he went.

“ _ How? _ ” he heard Kate call, then Clint’s voice, “DP, wait for us, dude--!”

But he was already in the main entrance (ladies wear!) where the swirl of aliens was thickest, and he could now tell, through the spray of blood and scaly wings, that they were all coming from the direction of the escalator. So! Jump down the escalator shaft and close the rift when he got there, or at least pull the sides together or something until Dr. Strange could show up.

Just as he was formulating this great plan, a huge shadow loomed up from the escalator shaft, cutting off the light from the glass ceiling.  _ Uh-oh,  _ White said,  _ Big Boss is here. _

“You ain’t kiddin’,” he answered, readying his swords as huge eyes started to glow in the shadowy head.

“Deadpool, what the hell is that?” he heard Spider-man call.

“Nothing to worry about, sweet cheeks,” he called back, “unless you want to come rescue me of course!”

Deadpool leapt back as the thing swiped out at him with one giant talon, and it missed taking his whole limb but ripped the suit off of his left arm, exposing his awful hamburger-meat skin to the air. Today was probably going to be a Die Day. Whatever – this party was getting boring.

And just as he was making a running start toward the giant shadow creature, he saw a blur of blue and red above his head.

_ Shit.  _ “No, Webs, I was kidding! I got this!” he shouted as Spider-man swung at the thing without pause.

Deadpool’s heart thrummed in his ears as he watched Spidey plow into the giant bird monster’s head with both feet, actually sending it flailing into the shoe display because god _ damn  _ Spider-man was strong as  _ fuck _ . He tried to get to the thing while it was still reeling, but he was still feet away when it seemed to get its bearings, huge eyes glowing again, and started to open its beak.

Oh  _ shit _ . “Spidey, look out!” he shouted, but the wall-crawling hero was busy making a giant net of webbing in which to trap the bird monster. Deadpool sprung at it to try to sink a katana into its massive body before it could to what it was about to do, but as the blade sank in, he saw a huge burst of light fly from its mouth – directly towards Spidey.

“ _ Webs! _ ” he heard himself cry out as he watched Spider-man stop in mid air, as if frozen, while the psychic wave washed over him, engulfing his whole body. Then, he fell.

Deadpool barely registered twisting his blade in the monster’s chest, or Kate and Clint hurtling into the department store, or the sound of Stephen Strange’s voice in the atrium because of course he chose  _ now  _ to show up.

All he heard was the voice in his head, just one this time, saying  _ no no no please please  _ as he ran towards the place where Spidey had fallen and saw a crumpled body in the middle of a collapsed display shelf, a twisted pile of red and blue that didn’t move.

*~*~*

Wade sat straight up in bed and inhaled loudly. He thought that was something people only did after nightmares in movies, but here he was, doing it himself in real life.

“Babe?” Peter said, groggily, pawing at his chest. “Whuh?”

“S’okay,” Wade reassured, putting his hand over his husband’s. “S’okay, baby, sorry – dream.”

Peter seemed satisfied with that and snuggled closer against his side, quickly falling back to sleep. Wade kissed his temple and tried to match Peter’s even breathing, but his heart felt like it was trying to escape his rib cage. What a fucked up dream. But that wasn’t – that wasn’t the problem.

The problem, he realized as he turned on his side so he could wrap both of his arms around Peter’s small frame, was that he was pretty sure he’d had the same dream before. 


	2. Chapter 2

“Spider-man?”

  
Wade wasn’t sure why, but hearing his little hubs say that name with such distaste struck him as absolutely hilarious.

  
“You couldn’t come up with a better superhero name for me than Spider-man?” Peter smirked, clearly amused by Wade’s laughter.

  
“Well, my superhero name seems to be Deadpool,” he reminded, laughter fading as he remembered the weirdly vivid dream. “At least I think I’m a superhero.”

  
“Aren’t we both fighting the creepy psychic hawk-demons?” Peter asked, reaching across the table to help himself to some of Wade’s eggs.

  
“Yeah,” Wade admitted, moving his coffee cup so Peter had better access to his plate, “but I’m — I dunno, I’m different from you. I’m kinda stabby.”

  
“How else are you supposed to fight hawk-demon-aliens?” Peter said, defensively, which somewhat eased the knot that had formed in Wade’s stomach.

  
Somewhat. “Yeah, but —  dream-you doesn’t like me, I don’t think.”

  
Peter’s fork paused halfway to his mouth. “Well that doesn’t sound like me. Are you sure it’s me? We’ve got masks on, right?”

  
“It’s definitely you.” Wade thought of the small, strong body plummeting to the ground, a blur of blue and red, and a feeling like someone had grabbed either side of his ribcage and was pulling in opposite directions.

  
A familiar weight was suddenly in his lap, arms looped around his neck. “Well if it is me, I bet I like you, even if I don’t show it. What else?”

  
Wade sighed, pressing his forehead against Peter’s shoulder as fingers combed through his hair. “I’m pretty sure I’m bald.”

  
He felt Peter clutch his golden locks, protectively, and laughed in spite of himself. “My skin is, like — really fucked up. It looks like I was burned, but then also there’s these open wounds, and it’s — a lot. It’s like something out of a horror movie.”

  
“Jesus,” Peter murmured, kissing his temple.

  
“And,” he continued because now that he’d started it was like he was being compelled against his will to talk about the dream, “I hear — voices, I think. There’s these voices that talk to me, and I talk back, but they’re in my head.”

  
Peter pulled back to look him in the eye. “You dream that you’re having auditory hallucinations?”

  
“Yeah,” Wade said, feeling his throat constrict at the serious look on his husband’s face. “Is that bad?”

  
“No no,” Peter smiled, shaking his head. “It’s just… really interesting, I’ve never heard of anybody actually dreaming a different… neurological set up for themselves. I’m impressed.”

  
Wade sighed, miserably. “Well, I do try to impress.”   
  


“Oh, sweetie,” Peter comforted, wrapping his arms around his neck once again. “You’re okay. It’s just this new house and the holidays. It’ll go away. How many times have you dreamed it?”

  
“A few.”

  
He never lied to Peter, and it felt weird to do so now. The truth was, he wasn’t sure, but he knew it was more than a few.

  
*~*~*

  
“Oh, babe—”

  
Wade pressed his face against the soft skin where Peter’s neck joined his shoulder, lightly holding his hips as they squirmed to try to get him to move, but no, he was going to take his time. He was going to enjoy the feeling of Peter, wrapped around him, hands clutching at his back, warm and alive and his.

 

The glide of Peter’s muscles were noticeable under the soft heated skin. Wade traced them with fingertips, watched them ripple and dance as Peter moved under Wade. That beautiful skin called out to him, begging for a taste. Wade nipped and licked, relishing the taste, the smell, the feel of Peter. Active Peter. Safe Peter. Alive Peter. 

 

A Peter who was making impatient needy noises. Wade relished those as well, taking them in and committing them to memory. The noises washed over him like a balm, proving that Peter was there with him. That Peter loved him. That Peter  _ wanted _ him. 

  
Wade finally started to move, slowly, carefully, which made his love let out a beautiful moan, arching up to try to get a deeper angle. Peter was always so impatient, so desperate for more. Wade liked to make it last. He enjoyed hours of lazy sex or multiple rounds of quickies. Right now, he wanted to drown in Peter. 

 

Wade kissed and bit his way up Peter’s shoulder and neck, leaving claiming marks on previously unblemished skin. Wade ran his tongue along Peter’s lips until the other became too impatient. They fell into a needy kiss, tasting each other, sharing breath and heat.

  
“Love you so much, baby—” Peter murmured into Wade’s mouth, his hips thrusting back onto Wade’s slow and steady pace.

  
Wade laughed, quietly — his guy was always so talkative. Just adorable. He gently pressed Peter’s shoulders down against the bed with one hand, grasping under his hips with the other and quickening his pace. Wade fucked him harder, watching Peter’s gorgeous face, his mouth, his lovely brown eyes closing as Wade wrapped a hand around Peter’s cock and tried his best to pump in time to his own thrusts.

 

One of Peter’s hands gripped at the sheets beside his head, his other clutching Wade’s arm. Watching Peter’s eyelashes flutter with pleasure was one of Wade’s favorite sights. Heat built at the base of his spine, and he could tell it did with Peter as well. They were both panting and flushed, both chasing after their orgasm and getting lost in the pleasure.

  
Peter keened and dug his head back into the pillow. Wade hunched forward, pressing in harder, his eyes fixed on the ecstasy painted on Peter’s face. Wade felt his pleasure spike, demanding and unstoppable. They came at almost exactly the same time, both of them letting out choked off exclamations of release.

 

Together they dropped back into the sheets, trying to catch their breath and enjoying the feeling of so much skin pressed against one another. Their limbs wove around each other, keeping them close as they drifted on a peaceful cloud of afterglow.

  
“Jesus,” Wade panted as they lay together after. “Has that happened before?” It was such a fantasy cliche to find release at the same time. It was one for the books.

  
“Maybe?” Peter mused, voice already thick with sleep. That was one reason why Wade wanted to make sure things never went too fast. Peter liked to pass out almost immediately after. 

 

Wade snuggled into his love, allowing the even breaths of Peter’s quickly fading consciousness to relax him. With Peter clinging to Wade like a very sexy, cuddly vine, they let sleep pull them under.

  
*~*~*

  
“Deadpool, stop!”

  
He couldn’t. He pulled Spidey’s body (no not a body please no) closer into his chest as Dr. Strange ran up to him, followed closely by Kate and Clint, who wore the same stricken expression as the sorcerer.

  
“Deadpool,” Strange pleaded, kneeling next to him, trying to touch Spidey. “Wade, come on. I’ve got to see what that thing did to him.”

  
Wade?

  
He was in a room, not the mall, a hospital room? People in tactical gear and colorful uniforms, more like his own and Spider-man’s, surrounded him, stopping him from getting where he wanted to be.

  
“Fuck off,” he shouted, pushing one of them aside.

  
“Deadpool, you can’t do anything for him,” said Captain Ameridick, standing over him in all his self-righteous glory. “Let Wanda and Strange see what’s wrong.”

  
He wrenched himself out of their grip, shoving Tall Solemn and Handsome aside to see — Spidey. On a table, a bed. Not moving.

  
*~*~*

  
Wade pressed his lips together as hard as he could, breathing through his nose. Peter was not going to see him like this.

  
The sleeping form next to him in their bed shifted.

  
“Baby, wha’s wrong?”

  
Shit.   
  


Wade shook his head and tried to tell him it was nothing, that he loved him, to go back to sleep, but he found that if he opened his mouth he would lose the already-weak grip he had on himself.

  
Peter noticed. Because of course he did. Arms slid around Wade’s waist.

  
“The dream again?”

  
Wade curled in on himself, one hand holding Peter’s wrist where it lay against his chest, feeling the pulse there, trying to — to believe it was there, it was real. He felt his shoulders shake as he recalled the dream. Peter moved closer to him, chin on his shoulder, arms wrapping around him more securely.

  
“Was it bad? Was it different this time?”

  
Wade nodded, but he still couldn’t speak. How could he? What would he say? How could he explain this feeling that the dream was important, not just a random mish-mash of stimuli that his sleeping brain had concocted, but something that — had happened, or that would happen. 

  
He turned to press this forehead against his husband’s, but even like this, even feeling Peter’s warm skin, feeling his light breath on his face, holding him here in their bed in their house, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Peter was in danger — he was in danger, and Wade could do nothing about it.

  
And that did it. Fear overwhelmed him, and all that he’d been keeping inside came out at once. Peter pulled him close, turning him so that he could bury his face in Peter’s neck. He wept helplessly.

  
“Oh, honey,” Peter comforted, rocking them a little. “Oh, babe, it’s okay. It’s okay, I’m here…”

  
Wade clutched at Peter’s back with what must have been painful intensity, but he had to — he felt like he was going crazy. Maybe he was? Maybe that was why the dream was so very upsetting — because the amoral, insane creature he was in the dream was what he was becoming, and his mind was warning him, preparing him. That wouldn’t be so bad, he thought, if that was what the dream meant instead of a warning that Peter was going to die, was going to be taken from him. 

  
“You’re okay,” Peter murmured as his sobs subsided. “Was it the same thing again?”

  
“Mostly,” Wade said, voice thick. “‘Cept this time — there were people, and I was trying to get to you, and they wouldn’t let me.”

  
Peter held him a little tighter, and it did help. They sat in silence for a moment.

  
“Before you,” Peter finally said, “I was so lonely. Did you know that?”

  
Wade sat up so he could look at his husband.

  
“I was,” Peter continued, pretty eyes all warm and sweet. “I thought I’d never have somebody, not really.”

  
“You’ve got so many friends,” Wade reminded, “and Ben and May.”

  
“Yeah,” Peter allowed, “but I was alone. And sometimes I think about what if… something happened to you, or if you left because you got tired of putting up with me—”

  
Peter shushed Wade before he could insist that such a thing would never happen. “It’s really, really scary to think of suddenly not being with you anymore, not having this,” he finished, bringing Wade’s knuckles up to his lips. “You know?”

  
Wade inhaled and exhaled, slowly and deliberately. He knew. He got what Peter was trying to say, and maybe that was it — maybe the dream was just a product of his fear of being alone. He had been so, so alone before Peter, and in the dream he felt like that solitary, unwanted person again. 

  
“I’m not gonna ever leave you,” Wade whispered.

  
Peter brought their foreheads together. “Same.”

  
Wade closed his eyes, fighting another wave of fear and grief. “But what if you — get sick? What if you die?” he asked, feeling profoundly childish.

  
“I will haunt you.” Wade snorted, bitterly, but Peter took his face in his hands. “I’m serious. I will be the most obnoxious ghost.”

  
Wade took one of Peter’s hands and kissed his wrist, once again seeking out the feel of his pulse. Real. Here. Alive. “I screw things up,” he said, almost without realizing he was going to. “I’ll screw this up.”

  
“No,” Peter said, simply, looking at him with a stubborn, confident expression that he’d seen a million times but never got tired of. “You’re mine. Whatever happens, we’ll figure it out.”

  
They made love again, even though it was the middle of the night, even though they both had work the next day. When they’d finished and Peter had fallen back to sleep, tucked securely into his side, Wade looked out the window to see it had started snowing. It was so beautiful that, in spite of his fear of the dream, he was able to drift off again.

  
*~*~*

  
“Is this really necessary?”

  
Peter looked up from the stack of Xmas cards he was addressing, some kind of big-band-covers of popular carols wafting jazzily from his laptop. He looked a little frazzled. “Just, like, fifty more to go. Do you know America and Gabby’s address?”

  
“Don’t you have a database from last year?” Wade asked, picking up one of the unaddressed envelopes because he realized he had no idea what their Xmas card looked like.

  
Peter let out a somewhat desperate sigh. “I can’t find it. I’ve just been frantically contacting people on social media to get their info.”

  
Wade was about to once again suggest that Xmas cards were not something they were obligated to provide when he saw the picture on the front of the card. “Do we not, uh — is this like the only picture of us that exists?”

  
Peter looked at the card he was holding up, which was the picture of them on their wedding day, the same picture that was in their picture-frame ornament that hung proudly on the front of their tree. “It’s just the best one we’ve ever taken together,” he shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck in that adorably sheepish way he did sometimes. “Is it okay? We can... get another card made...“

  
“No no no,” Wade laughed at the slightly panicked look on his husband’s face. “These are beautiful. I think we should put this same picture on our Xmas cards when we’re sixty. No one will know.”

  
Peter reached out to swat him on the ass, and Wade used the opportunity to pull him up out of his seat to dance with him. The jazzy big-band music was currently a cover of “All I Want for Xmas is You,” a song for which Wade had a distinct weakness.

  
“You know, we could go away for Xmas.”

  
“Yeah?” Peter said, looking at him curiously as Wade spun him under his arm. “You want to?”

  
Wade shrugged, pulling his husband’s much smaller body tight against his own and swaying to the music. “We didn’t get a honeymoon, figure we’re due.”

  
At least, Wade didn’t remember a honeymoon. He watched Peter frown, thoughtfully. “Yeah, I guess we didn’t, huh? Where do you want to go?”

  
“Anywhere,” he said, feeling a bit of the weight he’d been carrying in his chest dissipate suddenly. “Even just, like, to a fancy hotel downtown or something if you don’t want to be too far away from your folks.”

  
Peter smiled, taking over and swinging Wade out to twirl him, which made them both giggle. “That actually sound awesome, just the two of us.”

  
“We could bring the tree!” Wade suggested, a little giddy at the prospect.

  
“Sure!” Peter laughed, looking at their big lovely tree, all lit up and warm and cheerful. “And we could get a room with a kitchen and bake tons of cookies and somebody else would clean up the mess.”

  
“There’s no universe in which you’d actually leave a dirty kitchen.”

  
“That’s true,” Peter admitted as Wade dipped him, “but it’d still be fun. Let’s do it!”

  
“I’ll see if there are, like, last-minute deals,” Wade offered, sitting down at the laptop, heart legitimately thrumming with excitement.

  
“Good call. Ooh, we’ll need to take the calendar,” Peter reminded, going to the little end-table where he had set up the Lego advent calendar they’d picked up as an early present to themselves. “I’m pretty sure Xmas day is a Y-Wing.”

  
“We could leave it here so we don’t lose any bits,” Wade suggested, “and have the Y-Wing as, like, bonus Xmas present when we get back.”

  
Peter fixed him with a face that was very close to a pout. “Or we could take the calendar with us,” Wade amended, and Peter smiled — right answer.

  
“Look, it’s Santa Chewie,” Peter showed him the little Lego as he climbed into his lap, then made a sad-but-adorable attempt at a Wookie noise.

  
“Did he just ask me if I’ve been a good boy this year?” Wade raised an eyebrow.

  
Peter grinned rather devilishly, setting the Lego down and straddling Wade’s hips. “Ooh, Santa, what happens if I’ve been a bad boy?”

  
Wade laughed as Peter leaned in for a decidedly lascivious kiss. So, kinky Santa role play was happening. He couldn’t remember why he’d felt so upset, so distressed only minutes earlier.

  
*~*~*

  
The mall was quiet. All of the civvies had been evacuated before they’d arrived (and Deadpool could not get over the thought of hundreds of yuppie white asshole capitalists being driven from their sanctuary).

Santa was somewhere, but where? There had been reports of “demon-hawk” aliens that shot something out of their mouths which, according to Dr. Strange, was probably psychic energy of some kind. 

  
All they had to do was keep Santa, and any psychic hawk-demon-aliens, in the building until Strange could get there — evidently there was more than one event like this in the greater NYC area this afternoon. Wade had just happened to be close enough to Jersey to get summoned to this particular shitty mall.

  
But that was okay, because some of his favorite persons also happened to be close to Jersey this afternoon — Clint, and Kate who was pretty damn cool, and his favorite-est person of all. 

  
“Where could they be?” Spider-man wondered out loud, scanning the mall with his sharp eyes from his perch on the second-story banister. “Did he... send them back into the rift, maybe?”

  
“Or they’re invisible and standing right next to us. Crouching? Do birds stand?”

  
“Shut up, Deadpool.”

  
“What? They’re from another dimension, they could be invisible, they could be anything.”

  
Spidey turned and gave him a look that, even through the mask, read loud and clear as “shut up or I will shut you up.” Deadpool fought the wave of arousal brought on by dominant!Spidey and turned to check out the window of the store they were in front of. Might as well get his holiday shopping done while he was here.

  
It was one of those stores that had lots of random “interesting gift” items, like monogrammed towels and camera accessories and massagers that were actually sex toys. And picture frames, lots and lots of different types of picture frames. Deadpool’s eyes fell on one in particular.

  
“Webs, look!” he exclaimed, pointing with one hand and tapping Spidey on the shoulder with the other. “Look, gay husbands getting gay married! At the mall!”

  
Spider-man, to his surprise, actually turned and looked at the picture frame for a moment. “Aw, that’s great,” he said with genuine if tempered enthusiasm.

  
“That could be us,” Deadpool said, throwing an arm around Spidey’s shoulders, overcome by the inexplicable enthusiasm the picture had evoked from him.

  
Spidey irritably shoved his arm away. “That gets less funny every time, you know.”

  
“What’s funny?” Deadpool asked, actually confused.

  
“The whole flirting bit,” Spidey said, sharply. “Cut it out. Please.”

  
Deadpool flipped him off, which didn’t do anything to ease the sting in his chest. He turned away from his hero once again, looking back at the picture. 

 

It was two men, a blonde with blue eyes and a brunette with brown eyes, their arms around each other, holding themselves to each other’s side. It looked like a candid, maybe, because neither man was looking at the camera, but both were laughing, authentically delighted, so much so that he wondered if it was a real picture from a real wedding. Deadpool peered at the blonde and it struck him that he used to look that good in a tux, before the whole human-test-subject, horrible-deformation thing.

  
And then Santa suddenly emerged from the bowels of the mall, spewing bile, and with him a herd of what indeed looked like hawk-demons, vomiting blasts of light, and he watched Spider-man spring away into action as he drew his blades and hopped over the banister into the fray.

  
*~*~*

  
“Whatcha doin’?”

  
Wade jumped, startled. “Nothing,” he called upstairs to Peter. He’d hoped he’d be able to get back upstairs and in bed before his husband got out of the shower, but no such luck. “Just checking on something.”

  
Wade set down the Xmas card he’d been holding, glancing at the picture-frame ornament as he headed into the kitchen. He wasted three eggs, letting them slide out onto the floor because for some reason his hands were shaking.


	3. Chapter 3

“That was nuts.”

Peter sagged against the closed door of their house, sighing in a tired-but-satisfied way. “More nuts than usual?”

“Good point,” Wade admitted, sweeping his much smaller husband up in his arms and carrying him to their couch, ignoring, for the moment, the post-party carnage that lay around them. “I’m sorry Gabby and America couldn’t make it.”

“Weren’t they here?” Peter asked between kisses. “Like, for a little while, maybe when you were coordinating flaming shots on the porch?”

“Oh — maybe so,” Wade said, quickly diving back in to properly make out with his love. Something nagged at the corner of his brain, but he brushed it aside. They’d just thrown their first successful holiday party in their new house. He felt warm and happy from being surrounded by all of their friends and family, and now they were going to enjoy being alone.

“We forgot the advent calendar,” Peter murmured..

“Hm,” Wade hummed appreciatively as Peter’s warm hand slid up under his sweater. “I don’t suppose I’ll be allowed to take you upstairs and have my way with you until you get your lego, huh?”

“Our lego,” Peter corrected, “and no, you won’t be.”

Wade scooted out from under his guy, giving him a promising little smack on the hip. He took a moment to look at his husband from the other side of the room, his slender body sprawled out on the couch, shirt racked up to show just a bit of creamy skin, brown eyes watching him, an inviting little smile on his lips. Then he looked down at the calendar where it sat on their end table.

He managed not to scream out loud.

“What?” Peter asked after a moment. “Is the day not there?”

And he knew Peter meant that as a joke, and he laughed, but he didn’t dare answer. On each of the little flaps where he was pretty sure there should be a number there was only a bold, black, angry-looking X.

Swallowing the taste of bile in his mouth, Wade fumbled with one of the un-opened flaps, feeling inside to pull out at least some lego if not the correct one. But the little figure he managed to find was not something he could give to Peter. It might have been made of lego pieces once, but now it looked – misshapen, melted.

“Baby?” Peter asked, concern in his voice.

No more ignoring it, then.

Wade came back to the couch, sitting down next to his guy and kissing him once, full on the mouth, trying to memorize the feeling. “How was work today?”

Peter raised his eyebrows at the change in subject. “Fine. Why?”

He pushed a strand of Peter’s unruly hair off of his forehead. “What did you do?”

For a second, Peter looked like he was going to answer, and then he’d know for sure that he was simply losing his mind, that nothing was wrong with the world, with his husband, only with him.

Then Peter’s eyes went blank. Then, for just a half second, he looked scared.

“I don’t remember exactly,” he said with a casual shrug. “Must’ve been really exciting.”

Wade looked at him for a moment before asking, “Do you remember how we met?”

“Of course,” Peter smiled warmly, reaching up to cup Wade’s face in his hand.

“Tell me about it?”

Again, for a moment, he looked like he would answer, and Wade fervently wished that he would, but then again, that fleeting look of fear. “Why, babe? What’s this about?”

Wade put his hand over Peter’s where it caressed his face, holding it there. “Do you remember the day we got married?”

“Of course,” Peter said, not even thinking this time, “of course I do. Why are you asking me this stuff? What’s wrong?”

“Can you please tell me about it?”

“This is ridiculous,” Peter said, sounding almost angry. “It was our wedding, of course I remember, Harry took that great picture of us—”

“What else, honey?” he asked, gently. “What did we dance to? Did we have a cake?”

“Of course we had cake. Who doesn’t have cake?” Peter frowned at Wade. “We’ve both had a lot to drink tonight and it may be hard to focus on things, but I remember the important parts. I remember your smile and how happy we were and—”

“What about our first date?” Wade pushed, determined to prove something to himself. “Who said the L-word first, you or me?”

Peter stared at him, eyes wide and kind of blank in a way that Wade couldn’t ever remember seeing them. Then, again, he looked afraid, but it wasn’t as fleeting this time. This time, he let himself feel it. Something in Wade relaxed even as his chest flooded with dread.

“Why are you doing this?” Peter asked in a low tone. “Is this about that goddamn dream again?”

Wade, caught off guard, just nodded. Peter pulled away from him and stood, pacing a moment. Wade could only watch him.

“Enough,” Peter said, finally. “Enough of this. You have to go talk to somebody.”

“Somebody?”

“Yes,” Peter insisted. “Like a counselor, like a therapist.” 

Oh. “So... you do think I’m losing it?”

“Talking to a medical professional about a serious problem does not mean you’re ‘losing it,’” Peter corrected. “And what an awful way to talk about mental illness, honestly—”

Wade’s heart plummeted. “You think I’m mentally ill?”

“I am worried about you,” Peter said.

He walked over to the advent calendar and picked up the lego Wade had dropped. Peter walked over and knelt in front of Wade, taking his hands and pressing the lego into it. Wade looked down to find the pieces in perfect condition except that part of the body was no longer attached. Peter’s slim fingers pressed the pieces back together until they snapped into place.

“It just got a little knocked around, but it’s easy to fix,” Peter said. He wrapped his hands around Wade’s and looked at his husband with heartfelt eyes. “I love you and I want you to be happy and well.”

“You haven’t had any dreams like that?” Wade asked, almost not wanting to, but unable to help himself. “Like what I’ve been having?”

He couldn’t read Peter’s expression. That was terrifying in and of itself. “No,” he said, finally, earnestly. “No, Wade. I haven’t had those dreams.”

They went upstairs. They made love. Peter fell asleep. Wade looked out their window to see that snow was falling once again. He decided that he was going crazy. At least he had Peter, and maybe going to a therapist would help, maybe he was catching it early enough that he could avoid becoming that amoral, desperate, hallucinating person from his dreams, Deadpool. Maybe that didn’t have to be his future.

They would go tomorrow, together. Nevermind that he couldn’t remember having ever left their house — that was one of the things he’d tell the doctor about, and they would help him. It would be okay. Peter would take care of him, stay with him.

Wade got out of bed, carefully disentangling himself from his sleep-snuggling husband. He watched Peter’s chest rise and fall for a moment, then went downstairs. He wasn’t sure what he was going for. A glass of water, maybe. Yes, hydration would surely help his crumbling mental state.

He poured himself a glass and brought it into the living room. Their tree really was beautiful, and looking at it had a calming effect. He breathed in deeply, then exhaled slowly.

The thing seemed to come out of nowhere, soundlessly, a hulking shadow that rose up behind their tree and spread its massive, scaly wings, and then it made a sound — an awful, barking shriek, very like a bird but also utterly alien. Wade’s mouth fell open in a scream, but his voice wouldn’t work. Peter was in danger, Peter needed him, but he was helpless against this thing that now looked down on him with red, pit-like eyes…

*~*~*

“—his aunt here?”

Sue Storm shook her head, then looked up to see him standing in the doorway of the hospital room. Johnny Storm looked at him as well, his expression instantly morphing from worry to disgust.

“Fuck off, Deadpool,” he spat.

“Stop it,” Sue told her brother in a low voice, then looked at him. “What is it you want?”

“I want to go in there,” he said.

The Wonder Twins just stared at him. “No way in hell,” Johnny said after a moment. “You think we’re stupid enough we’d let you into his brain? You’d love that, huh — find out all his secrets, who he is? If anybody’s going in there with him, it’ll be one of us.”

“That would do jack shit,” he reminded, focusing on Spidey’s still body where it lay on the bed, the bare skin of his nose and mouth covered by an oxygen mask. “You heard Strange — he’s stuck in a big, black void and the second you Vulcan mind-meld you’ll be stuck there, too.”

“So why do you want to go in, then?” asked Sue, who was less unkind than Johnny but looked no more pleased to be interacting with Deadpool than her brother was. Or maybe she was just exhausted from grief and fear.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m fucking nuts,” he said, trying for cheerfulness. “My brain’s already compartmentalized in ways it shouldn’t be. I’ll stay myself when I’m in there, find the part of Spidey that still knows who he is, and bring him out. Easy-peasy.”

Johnny Storm told him exactly what he thought about that plan, and Deadpool kept himself from eviscerating the Human Match Stick by remembering that Johnny was sick with worry, just like he was. Maybe even moreso, because the Fantastic Foursome seemed to know who Spidey was and that he had an aunt and what not. Deadpool knew nothing about Spider-man except that he loved him, that the sight of him lying so still was making him panic because Spidey was never ever still, not for a second.

Sue didn’t dismiss him right away, but she did call Dr. Strange and Wanda to get their opinions.

“It’s a possibility,” Wanda said, looking to Deadpool. “Since your brain is, well, different, it could be you’ll stay aware of what’s happening, enough to talk him through this.”

“But we don’t know what those things were or even where they came from, exactly,” Strange reminded. “So we’re just guessing that what they did to him is a psychic shock that’s reversible, but that might not be true at all. He could just be gone.”

Sue looked like she might throw up. Johnny turned away, facing Spidey’s prone form and the crazy SHIELD gadgets and mystical spell clouds that floated over and around it. Deadpool almost felt a pang of sympathy for him.

“He’s there,” Wanda said, laying a hand on Spider-man’s masked forehead. “I feel him in there, but I can’t talk to him at all. He’s lonely.”

And that fucking did it. “I’m going in there,” Deadpool said, planting himself in the chair next to Spidey’s bed. “This happened because he was trying to rescue me from that Rodan-esque demon pigeon. Worst-case scenario I end up in floaty black space with him, right?”

“Not with him,” Strange said in an exasperated tone. “You’ll just be in the void, Wade, and I won’t be able to bring you back.”

Wade. Why did he have to keep calling him that? And why did he care, suddenly? He’d known Strange for years. He’d known Spidey for years. Years and years of memories, none of them worth nearly as much as the possibility of bringing his tiny hero back.

“No,” Johnny said again, destroying any sympathy points he’d racked up. “No fucking way. I’ll do it. I know the little shit, I’ll find him in there.”

Sue took her brother’s hand. “Wanting it to work isn’t going to make it work.”

Johnny’s shoulders sagged in defeat, and he sat down, covering his face with his hands. Sympathy points restored. Sue looked at Deadpool. “You want to help him? Even though you’ll probably end up as good as dead?”

He shrugged. “Have you seen what my life is like? Floating in a void for the rest of eternity would be a vast improvement.”

Strange sighed, frustrated, and Wanda looked very sad, poor sweet empathetic thing. Sue just held his gaze, as if reading his mind, which he was pretty sure wasn’t one of her weird-powers.

“Okay,” she said, finally. “If you’re willing, please try.”

Strange made him lay on a gurney, which was irritating, but they rolled him as close to Spidey as possible, so it was almost like they were in bed together, so he didn’t complain.

“Will this even do anything?” Wanda asked as she inserted an IV needle hooked up to a saline drip into his arm. “Can you get dehydrated?”

“Just mist me with water every once in awhile, if it’s not too much trouble,” he suggested, giving her an encouraging wink.

“You have to be quiet and hold still for this,” Dr. Strange said as he held his hands over him in that creepy way he was so fond of.

“If I had nickel for every time…” Wade started, but he didn’t get to finish his joke (which was a shame because what a set up). The last thing he saw was Sue and Johnny Storm, looking at him from over the Sorcerer Supreme’s shoulder. He wanted to tell them he wouldn’t fuck up, not with Spidey, that he’d save him, but then everything went dark and still.

*~*~*

Wade stood in front of their closed front door. The hawk-alien that had grown out of their tree wasn’t there anymore. It had never been there.

He didn’t bother putting on a coat. He just wanted to be in the snow, in the quiet, just to clear his head. He put his hand on the door-knob and turned, pushing it open, stepping outside.


	4. Chapter 4

Snow was falling in big, lazy flakes that had already coated their neighborhood in shimmering white. Wade didn’t know what it was about snow that made things so quiet, as if all the sound had been sucked out of the world, but he liked it. It made him feel safe.

He walked down their drive, his boots crunching in the freshly-fallen snow, waiting for something to strike him as very familiar — their drive, the front of their house, their neighbor’s houses — telling himself that he’d done this many times, seen all of this many times, and it was home and it was just his poor, exhausted mind that made it seem like some idyllic fantasy he was making up on the spot.

It was subtle at first, the road and lawns and houses around him changing so slightly that Wade hadn’t taken notice through his own internal strife. That didn’t last. Noises started moving, sliding around him like water. The light shone down from above at different angles. Yards seemed to be both immaculately mowed and overgrown all at once.

Wade stopped walking and looked around him in concern. Ahead of him, the world was skewed. Things were at angles and sizes that should not have allowed them to smoothly transition into the next and yet they did. One house looked burnt, with only the structure still standing. Another was bulbous on one end while short and blocky on the other.

Beyond that the shadows created were too deep, too dark, and shifted of their own accord. It instilled a sense of fear in Wade that he couldn’t name or explain, the safety he’d felt from the snowy quiet utterly obliterated. He stood there, staring at it all, trying to make sense of it. He was really going crazy. That was the long and short of it. It was so obvious now.

In the silence, voices drifted to him. Whispers so far off that he couldn’t discern the words or their meanings. They overlapped and changed their intonation rapidly. Wade could feel it in his bones that if he walked further on, they would become clearer, louder, more sensical. He was afraid of that. He was terrified of what they would tell him.

Wade turned to look behind him. The further down the road, the more things made sense. Everything in the other direction was neat and orderly and familiar. But in front of him… Wade swiveled back around to look at the road of chaos once more. Why was it like that?

Why did it look like a dream?

Just like that, the dam broke. He could remember things, could remember why he was there, could remember details of Spider-man’s coma. Wade stumbled forward and things became clearer. He remembered the lengthy details of Dr. Strange’s mumbo jumbo speech. Another step and he remembered the arguments of the other Avengers, debating if Deadpool should even be given a chance to join minds with Spider-man.

Wade couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t real. His world was all a lie. His entire existence was fake. He and Peter—

“What are you doing here?”

Wade whirled around to see Peter standing there. He looked upset, panicked, angry, and sad all at once. Behind him was a perfect little community of houses. It was happiness and order. Behind Wade was fear, confusion, and chaos.

“Why are you out this far?” Peter demanded, tears pooling in his eyes.

“This is a dream,” Wade whispered, his voice awed at the realization. “I wasn’t having nightmares before. I was remembering things.”

Peter held out his hand. “Come back. If we go back, we’ll forget.”

“You’re in a coma…” Wade was out of it, his mind churning over the information he was finally able to process. Reality was at last asserting itself.

“It doesn’t matter!” Peter took a deep breath, trying to keep his emotions at bay, but they clogged his throat and thickened his voice. “We’re happy here. We can go back and forget this place. Forget about everything but us. Don’t you want that?”

“I was supposed to bring you back out.” Wade stared, his emotions too much and too many to make sense of.

Peter didn’t have that problem. His face contorted in pain and anger. “Why won’t you come back? Aren’t you happy here? Aren’t you happy with me?”

“I’ve never been happier in my life.”

“Then why? Why would you want to go back there?”

“I have to,” Wade said.

“I was so lonely before you.” Peter choked and swallowed before continuing. “It was all black and empty and soundless. I couldn’t feel anything—”

“It won’t be like that when you wake up,” Wade promised. “That was just the coma—”

“No! It _will_ be like that!” A tear escaped Peter’s eye and streaked down his cheek. Wade’s chest ached to see it. “It’s always been like that! I’ve always been alone.” Peter wrapped his arms around himself. “Wade, please. Let’s just go home. I hate it here. I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to remember anymore.”

“I can’t…”

“Why?!” Peter sobbed, his whole frame starting to tremble. “Don’t you like it here? Don’t you want to be with me?”

Wade hurried forward and pulled Peter into his arms, squeezing tight. “I’ve never wanted anything more than I’ve wanted to be with you. Nothing will ever compare to you.”

“Then why do you want to leave?” Peter’s voice was muffled from where his face was buried in Wade’s chest and his hands were clenched tight around Wade’s torso.

“Because it doesn’t matter how long I’m unconscious. It won’t hurt me. But you… You’ll die eventually.”

“I’ll die eventually either way. If we live here, we’ll never have to know that!”

Irrational. Peter was scared and irrational and desperate. Wade couldn’t tell if those were actually Peter’s feelings or not. They were probably all Wade’s. A dream that never should have happened. It wasn’t part of the plan, but Wade’s mind somehow threw everything for a loop. Was Peter even aware of what he really wanted?

“I would do anything for you,” Wade whispered, dropping a kiss onto Peter’s puff of hair. “But I won’t stand by and let you die. I can’t.”

“I don’t want to leave!”

“That isn’t you. You’re a hero. This is all me and what I want.”

“That’s not true!” Peter pulled back and slammed his fists against Wade’s chest. “I love you! I want to be with you!”

“You don’t understand what that means.”

“I do! I remember. I can remember too when we’re here.” Tears streaked down Peter’s face. He looked so hurt. “I love you, Wade.”

It hurt. It hurt like nothing Wade had ever experienced before. He could feel it flare across every nerve in his body because it wasn’t true. Not at all. Not one little bit. Peter was trapped in Wade’s fantasy and that was unfair. Perhaps Deadpool was a bad enough person to be okay with that, but Wade wasn’t.

“I love you, Baby Boy.” Wade cradled Peter’s face in his hands. “I will always love you. And if you love me, then you won’t make me watch you die.”

Peter looked defeated. He closed his eyes and just stayed there, held in place by Wade’s large hands. He didn’t agree, but he didn’t protest. Tears leaked freely over his cheeks and the sky behind him darkened with his emotions. Or rather, Wade’s emotions. Since he was controlling everything…

None of it was real.

None of it.

“I came here to save you,” Wade whispered as he scooped Peter up into his arms. “And that’s what I’m going to do.”

Peter curled up against Wade and clung to the large frame, face buried in Wade’s neck. He kept his eyes closed, not wanting to see their world fall apart — not wanting to see the dark and fractured mind they were about to walk into. Wade wished he could have ignored it as well.

Instead, Wade turned around and faced the chaos before him. Taking a deep breath, he put one foot in front of the other, forcing his body to travel further into the void neither of them wanted to go into. The shadows grew longer and licked at his feet. The voices grew louder and more coherent.

_What a schmuck._

_Idiot. You had it all, and you’re giving it up._

_He’s gonna hate you for what you did to him here._

_Murderer._

_Brainwasher._

_Ugly._

_Worthless._

Wade gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, screaming at himself to walk forward. He was used to the voices. He was used to the boxes. It didn’t matter. He could survive going back. He always survived, even when he actively tried not to. The world may not be better with Deadpool back in it, but it would be a hundred times better with Spider-man back.

  
And that was worth everything.

“I love you,” Wade whispered again, hoping it would ground him. His arms gripped tight to Peter, wishing that the body felt as warm as it used to, as heavy, as real. It didn’t anymore. They both felt so unreal, so weightless.

Something splashed under Wade’s feet. He looked down to see blood. Around him colors swirled and clashed with inky black. They surged and danced and pressed down on him. Wade kept walking. The voices got louder. Echoing screams of his past rang around him — gunfire, metal on metal, maniacal laughing.

Welcome back, his mind said.

Then everything went black.

*~*~*

There was light. Peter blinked his eyes, experimentally.

He could feel his mask pushed up over his nose, not removed, so he was probably safe. He heard a loud noise, a voice, several voices—

And then the unmistakable feeling of Ben Grimm crushing his body to his rocky chest.

He heard someone tell Ben to stop, to not touch him yet. He blinked his eyes again, cringing at the very bright light, and saw a room full of people, looking at him, some of them laughing, a couple of them maybe crying, all of them smiling.

“Spider-man?” He looked next to him to see Wanda peering at him, anxiously.

“Hey,” he said, that was all it took to set off the loud voices again. They were happy, very happy.

He heard Dr. Strange telling everyone to clear out and leave him alone, and he heard Cap try to encourage everyone to do what Dr. Strange asked. The crowd in the room — who he now understood were the FF and like thirteen-percent of the Avengers — ignored both of them to keep smiling at him, patting him on the back and shoulders, hugging him when they could get close enough until Reed’s creepy stretchy arms started snaking through the room, pulling everyone back.

Peter looked next to him — there was another bed, but no one was standing around that one. A figure sat up on the bed, legs over the other side so that its back was to Peter — a very familiar back. He watched as the figure’s head bowed, curling in on itself.

Peter tried to lunge for him, to reach him and touch him, but he only succeeded in knocking over the IV station that was between the beds. Coordination had not returned to him yet, evidently. He heard Nat start telling people to “okay really back the fuck up,” but he was still staring at the figure on the other bed who, startled by the noise, turned and looked right at him.

Their eyes met, and Peter felt like his heart would stop. But once Deadpool had seen that he was all right, he quickly turned away again. Deadpool’s mask was off, and the look on his face before he turned from Peter—

“Do you remember what happened?”

Peter pulled his eyes away from Wade’s— from Deadpool’s back to see who had spoken to him, but now everyone was suddenly speaking to him. Reed and Dr. Strange and Bruce Banner were politely fighting over who was best equipped to assess his condition, Nat and Cap were trying to get everyone to leave, Miles was loudly asking whether he should go get food because Spidey was probably starving—

Peter looked back at the bed but Deadpool was no longer there. Panicked, he looked at the door and saw a red-and-black-clad back leave through it.

“Hey, Wade, let Doc check you out!”

He saw Clint and Kate, who he now remembered had been there when this happened, go out after Deadpool. They’d catch up with him. Clint knew him really well, he’d bring him back.

But he didn’t come back. Not the whole time all of the various doctors in the room were satisfying themselves that Peter really was okay. Not while he was eating the mountain of food that Miles, god love him, brought back. Not when Johnny left to go find him, Johnny who seemed uncharacteristically concerned about the masked mercenary all of the sudden.

“What was it like?” Miles asked him, wide-eyed, once it was just the two of them and they could take off their masks. “Do you remember anything?”

It was the second or third time someone had asked him that since he’d woken up, and he replied the same way he had previously — nope, just like waking up after getting knocked out. Nothing.

He hated lying to Miles, but he just didn’t know how to tell him about a beautiful little house, and a big warm Xmas tree, and a man—

_Do you remember how we met?_

Peter didn’t sleep at all that night, even though ten different people had told him to get some rest and Sue offered to stay to keep him company. He tried to convince himself that it was just because he had been asleep for like a whole day, evidently. It wasn’t because he was watching the door to his room, waiting to see a tall, broad shadow in the light from the hallway, wishing so badly to see it that his stomach hurt.


	5. Chapter 5

“He knows who you are now.” 

Peter looked back at the serious expressions on Cap and Natasha’s faces. “I know,” he said, lamely.

“Would you like us to do something about that?” Nat asked in that calm-yet-scary way that she was so good at.

“No, it’s okay.” Peter shook his head, wincing immediately and prompting Cap to place a steadying hand on his shoulder. If he didn’t quit doing shit like that they’d never let him out of this high tech pretend-hospital-room in Avengers HQ.

“You should think about it,” Nat shrugged. “I don’t blame the Storm kids for letting him help you, especially since they also apparently know your real name.”

He may have imagined the slightly hurt looks on Cap’s and Natasha’s faces at that. They’d both known Spider-man a long time — Cap had taught him how to fight, and Nat had always been endearingly protective of him in her subtle way. Spiders have to look out for each other, she’d told him.

He understood why they’d be concerned that Deadpool knew his most closely-guarded secret, something he kept even from them. He had no idea how to explain to them that it was fine, that he absolutely trusted the mercenary to keep his secret, to not use it against him.

_I would do anything for you._

“Spidey?” Cap asked. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Peter assured, closing his eyes but catching himself before he shook his head. “I promise it’s alright. I’m not worried about it.”

They exchanged worried glances with each other, but they didn’t push the issue. They might not have known Peter Parker, but they respected Spider-man.

 

*~*~*

 

“So are you two, like, close?”

Peter sighed as Reed shined a tiny flashlight in his eyes for what felt like the eightieth time. “What?”

“I dunno,” Johnny shrugged from his seat in the corner. “He just, like, made us let him go into your brain with you. He was really aggressive about it. I didn’t know you were friends, is all." 

“Are you jealous?” Peter deadpanned, turning his head for Reed to attach diodes to his temples for what felt like the ninetieth time. But it felt so good to be fully out of his mask after sleeping in it for over twenty-four hours that he almost didn’t care. 

“No!” Johnny huffed as Ben laughed, heartily. “I was just asking, damn _._ ”

“Leave him alone a minute,” Sue scolded, gently. “He needs to think happy thoughts so Reed will let him out of here in time for Christmas.”

Reed frowned at his wife, who was unfazed. Even though Sue was kind of joking, Peter did try to clear his mind — if Reed was satisfied after this, and if Dr. Strange said his aura was shiny or whatever, then he’d finally be allowed to leave this room. He could go back to his sad, tiny apartment with its broken heater and finally have a moment alone with his thoughts. 

“I’ve known him a long time,” Peter told Johnny after Reed had cleared him and he was feeling more generous. “That’s all, though. We don’t, like, hang out or anything.”

“He just seemed to really,” Johnny shook his head, searching for the words, “I dunno, care about you.”

“Doesn’t he pretty openly flirt with you all the time?” Reed asked casually as he swabbed the diode-sticky off of Peter’s temples.

“He flirts with everybody,” Johnny snarked back as Ben and Sue laughed at Reed’s surprising awareness of interpersonal matters. 

“Not like he flirts with our lil web-slinger,” Ben clapped Peter on the shoulder, almost knocking him off of the bed. “Ol’ Pete’s irresistible, arentcha?”

Peter hoped that the others overlooked his wan smile as a product of low energy from his convalescence. “He flirts with Spider-man, not Peter,” he corrected.

“Well, not now,” Johnny said, somewhat bitterly, “now that he’s been all inside your brain and probably knows all kinds of stuff about you, including your real name, thanks to Sue.”

Reed gave his brother-in-law a stern look, but Sue shrugged. “I don’t regret it. He was more than willing, and he was the only person who had even a chance of saving you — it was worth anything to get you back.”

_I came here to save you._

 

*~*~*

 

His heater had not been miraculously fixed while he’d been comatose, as he’d halfway let himself hope on the way back to his little place.

Peter curled up as tightly as he could on his threadbare sofa, pulling his hoodie over his legs and the sleeves over his fingers. He was so tired, though he’d slept for over a day, if you could call that sleep.

 _This is a dream._  

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there trying to work up the energy to do something. Dr. Strange and Reed and Bruce had all told him to lay low for a couple of days. He looked over at his small coffee table that was also his dining room table at the lego advent calendar that May had given him because she apparently thought he was still seven years old. Three days until Christmas.

He should go over to May’s. He’d called her when he woke up and been relieved to discover that, as far as she knew, he’d just been too busy to call for a couple of days, which wasn’t unusual. He wanted to see her. Ben, too -- Ben, who’d been alive in the dream or whatever it was. And Harry was alive there. And Gwen. He hadn’t seen them, but he remembered the feeling that they were close, that he could see them whenever he wanted. It was hard to get used to the idea that it wasn’t true, that this was his real, actual life — in this shitty apartment he could barely afford, all alone. 

_This is all me and what I want._

No, he thought as he opened the days he’d missed on his calendar, carefully setting the lego pieces on the table. Not true. It had been Peter as well, shaping the world where they’d found each other.

He didn’t remember the void. He remembered waking up and being so happy. He remembered his— his husband, standing at the edge of a crumbling reality that fell away into darkness behind him. He remembered crying, begging him to stay. 

 _If you love me, then you won’t make me watch you die._  

Surely if Wade — if Deadpool knew his real name, he could find out where he lived. He was a mercenary, and a good one. It couldn’t be hard for someone with this experience and his connections to find a poor, twenty-something, loser photographer-slash-grad-student who hadn’t covered his tracks very well.

If he wanted him — if he wanted to see him, he’d come find him. He’d knock at the door or sneak in the window (which didn’t even have a lock) or pop out of the damn ceiling. Any second, he could.

If he wanted to.

 

*~*~*

 

“You’re sure you don’t want to come with?”

Peter kissed May on the cheek and used a smidge more of his strength than usual to hug her. “I’m good — some work friends are doing a Christmas Day get together. You have fun and don’t worry about me, okay?”

May cupped his face in her hands, ignoring her gaggle of girlfriends who were already piled into their airport shuttle. “I love you, sweetie. Have a Merry Christmas, okay?”

As he looked into her warm eyes he felt an intense emotion that he hadn’t experienced maybe since he was a little kid, at least since he was a teenager, that awful day they’d held each other and mourned for their shared loss. He wanted to tell her everything, more than he ever had in all the time he’d been Spider-man. She loved him so much, and she’d been so good to him, and he wanted her to know him.

But more than that, always more than that, he wanted her to be safe and unworried.

“Love you,” he called as she climbed into the shuttle. “Stay away from the high-roller tables — or don’t!”

May and her friends giggled and waved at him as their driver closed them in and pulled away, leaving him standing at the corner outside of the house he’d grown up in. He didn’t go back inside, heading back towards the train stop instead. Much as he did not think he’d fit in with May’s all-single-mature-women Christmas in Vegas adventure, he suddenly wished he wasn’t spending the holiday alone.

_You know, we could go away for Christmas._

Peter sighed roughly, balling his fists in his pockets in frustration. The person shoved in next to him on the train edged away a bit.

He couldn’t stop thinking about it. He had tried, he really had, because obviously that’s what Wade — what Deadpool wanted him to do, to forget about it, to leave him alone. He hadn’t tracked him down, not even to check if he was okay. No one had seen him around since the day they woke up. Peter had tried not to think of him, knowing he was probably right, that forgetting was probably the best thing—

No. Screw that. He couldn’t do it, and he wouldn’t. Real or not, it had happened, and he needed — something. He needed to talk to Deadpool. He needed to talk to Wade.

 

*~*~*

 

“I don’t know if that’s a great idea, Spidey.”

“Why?” Peter asked as he handed Clint a wrapped present to add to the pile. He’d hoped the Avenger’s annual toy drive would be the perfect opportunity to pressure Clint into helping him find Deadpool, but he was being difficult. “Did he — did he say he doesn’t want to see me?”

Clint looked at him with sad, compassionate eyes and it made Peter want to punch his friend in the face. “It just — it messed with him, whatever happened while you two were brain-sharing.”

“Did he tell you what happened?”

“No,” Clint reassured, and Peter’s heart climbed down out of his throat, “but he’s just — it was a lot.”

“And he thinks I’m, what,” Peter said, aggressively affixing a red bow on top of the next present in line, “fine? Totally not bothered by it?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Clint explained, taking the present and straightening Peter’s Anger Bow before placing it on the pile. “He has this idea that he did something to you, like messed with your brain.”

Peter wrapped in silence for a moment, painfully aware that Cap’s wrapped presents were piling up behind him. “I want to talk to him,” he insisted, quietly. “I have to. Can’t you — can you just tell him that?”

Clint looked sympathetic but hesitant. “Please,” Peter nearly begged, “you’re the only person I know who’s seen him.”

“I’ll tell him,” the archer agreed, “but don’t get your hopes up, okay? I know the guy — once he’s decided something it’s pretty much impossible to bring him around.”

“Me, too,” Peter countered, but he felt lighter in his chest than he had for days. He wanted to tell Clint that he also knew him, knew that Wade would respond to hearing that Peter wanted to talk to him.

 _Do you really?_ asked the little voice in his brain that he couldn’t seem to shut up. He knew the guy in the— dream, the alternate reality, whatever it had been. He knew he hadn’t exactly been himself in that place. What if Wade hadn’t, either?

“You alright, Spidey?” Cap clapped a warm, solid hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay to take a break.”

“Yeah, no, I’m good, sorry!” Peter laughed, picking up the next present in line and quickly attaching a bow and going back to pretending to be okay.

 

*~*~*

 

“This is just sad.”

Kate pulled the extra-drunk dude from his expensive car, the car he had been barrelling down an alleyway before America had stopped it with one hand. “Not as sad as it probably would have been,” Kate said as she deposited the guy on his own hood, “if we hadn’t stopped this asshole from running down a dozen homeless folks.”

“Why do we get stuck stopping DUIs on Christmas Eve?” America groused, throwing the guy’s keys in the snow. “It’s depressing, is all.”

Peter sighed as he looked down into the darkness of the alley, seeing the shadows of people huddled in the snow, probably hoping the three Avengers would leave them alone. “Tis the season,” he muttered.

He was moving to help America pull the car back onto the street (though she didn’t actually need help) when he felt a familiar prickling on the back of his neck. Turning to look back at the office building from which extra-drunky DUI guy had emerged, Peter saw two more rich-looking drunk white guys getting into a fist-fight — it was sad and sloppy but quickly escalating in violence. Heaving another sigh, he webbed his way over to get the drop on the drunkest, most violent one.

“C’mon, fellas,” he said, restraining one of them and pushing the other away, trying to avoid webbing them up. “It’s Christmas Eve, just go home.”

He turned his full attention to the more squirrely one (who was slurring wildly at the other guy about a common lover, best he could tell) and he’d just about gotten the guy on the ground without hurting him when his spine tingled again.

He whipped around to see that the other guy had, yep, pulled a gun — merry fucking Christmas. Luckily, the guy was so startled by his Spidey-speed that he fumbled, and Peter easily got control of the weapon. He kicked the guy in the chest using a tiny fraction of his strength, but it was enough to send him to the snowy ground with a satisfying yelp.

And for the third time, his skin prickled, but in a somewhat different way. He looked to his left, to the shadow of the alley, and saw a figure — hood pulled up over his head, face obscured, except for his eyes, which were a piercing blue. He was in what Peter knew as a “ready” position, as if he’d been prepared to tackle gun-toting-rich-drunk-dude if Peter hadn’t in time.

Their eyes met.

“Hey,” Peter said, breathlessly. For a moment, he thought the figure might say something back, but with one last look he turned and quickly disappeared into the dark of the alley.

“Wade!” Peter called, following him a few steps, knowing it was too late.

 _Hey?_ That’s what had come out of his mouth when he suddenly found the person he’d been aching to see so badly that hadn’t been able to sleep? And that look in his eyes when they’d met briefly, that same look he’d seen when they’d first woken up in the hospital room at Avengers HQ, that look of unspeakable pain, fear, grief. It felt like a knife in Peter’s chest just as it had then.

He felt Kate and America behind him and was very glad for his mask.

“Kate knows where he lives.”

Peter turned around to see Kate giving America a furious glare. America shrugged. “I’m done with sad!Spidey. Something nice needs to happen tonight.”

“You know where he lives?”

Kate sighed, turning to face him. “I don’t know where he lives,” she amended, “but — I know where he shops.”

And that would be plenty. Peter felt like he could float away, leave this terrible trash-fire of a corporate holiday party behind. Wade had followed him, had been ready to rescue him from a gun-wielding stock broker.

_I love you, Baby Boy._

And now he was going to find him and get that sad look off his face.

Maybe.

 

*~*~*

 

He sat on a fire escape all night, watching the Indian grocery that Kate had pointed him to. It was freezing, but it somehow felt warmer than his apartment (which still didn’t have a working heater — so much for Christmas miracles).

Around 6am, he saw a tall, broad figure in a ball cap and hoodie go into the grocery and emerge with two large cartons of take-out and three bags of Funions.

Bingo.

The figure went into the building next to where Peter was camped out. He watched the windows from outside, seeing him go up to the top floor. After what he felt was an appropriate interval, he climbed his way to the window of the apartment. He wasn’t in his Spidey gear, and he hadn’t brought his web-shooters. He was just Peter tonight — today, rather, since the sun was kind of starting to create shadows on the rundown storefronts around him.

The window was not locked. Peter supposed that when one was an incredibly accomplished mercenary and assassin, reputation served as its own security. He pushed it open, peering inside. He saw no one. He got one leg into the apartment before a voice came from another room.

“Go ‘way, Webs.”

That voice — he hadn’t heard it since they’d been in the dream together. It nearly made his heart stop. He swung his other leg through the window and dropped onto the floor. 

“Shouldn’t you be under a tree somewhere?” came the voice again, closer now. “With a certain middle-aged-auntie, who lives by herself and has no idea that you dress up in spandex and have lots of really scary enemies?”

So that was his strategy — make Peter angry, afraid, get him to hurt him, hate him. “She’s in Vegas,” Peter replied, as casually as he could.

And suddenly there he was, leaning against the wall in the small hallway that led into his living room. Peter had seen his face before, but only in those couple of glimpses since the Dream. Much as he hated himself for thinking it, Wade had looked beautiful there — blonde and handsome and strong, like a friggin’ lumberjack model. Peter assumed that was how he’d looked before whatever had happened to make him Deadpool, which he didn’t know too much about, except that it was horrible and very much against his will.

But those eyes — they were exactly the same, even now when his face was set in a bitter, hard expression.

“What about the Fantastic Fuckwads?” Wade asked, the bitterness of his expression twisting in his voice. “You’re such good buddies with them — surely they have room under the Christmas tree for their pet spider. They were so worried about you, totally willing to let a murderous psycho fool around in your head if it meant getting you back.”

He figured the man was genuinely trying to get him to leave, to realize that his husband from the Dream really truly didn’t exist and he should mourn him and forget about it. The way he kind of shrank down in his hoodie, arms crossed tightly over his chest, suggested he was fighting with himself.

But there was a chance he was baiting him, trying to get Peter to work harder, to prove he really wanted to be there. Peter wasn’t the smartest guy on the block when it came to relationships, but he’d been in enough emotionally abusive ones to know that trick.

“I don’t deserve this from you,” he said, simply.

He saw his words land, saw Wade’s demeanor change, even if it was slight. “You’re the one who broke into my house, Petey.”

Ugh! He hated being called that. If they ever got past this conversation, he’d have to tell him so.

“You were tailing me last night,” he said, and to his relief, Wade didn’t try to deny it. “I’ve been looking for you. You have to have heard — I asked everybody I know where to find you, if they’d seen you—”

To his surprise, Wade put his hands over his face, turning from him to lean his back against the wall. “Please just go, Spidey,” he said, voice muffled. “I don’t blame you for being pissed about what happened, but trust me, for once, I actually couldn’t help it — and once I realized, I made it right, you’re all back and safe now, all the Avengers and Friends are happy, so…”

Peter was not sure he’d ever heard Deadpool trail off before. Given the opportunity, he always chose to keep talking until someone cut him off (or cut out his vocal chords, which he’d seen Logan do once, and the memory made him mildly upset now). He almost told him that was ridiculous, that he hadn’t done anything wrong, but Peter knew from experience that dismissing someone’s feelings of guilt was useless and counter-productive. So instead, he pulled a small, wrapped package out of his hoodie pocket and held it out.

“Merry Christmas. I don’t know if you, um — celebrate,” he said, glancing around the messy-yet-barren apartment which was devoid of any decoration let alone a Christmas tree.

When he dared to look back at Wade, he was staring at him with those eyes. Peter held the little present out for what felt like an eternity before Wade finally, carefully took it from him.

“Open it,” Peter prompted when Wade just stood awkwardly in his hallway holding the gift. “Please.”

Wade did, though tentatively, pulling back the colorful paper to reveal the picture frame from the mall in Jersey where this whole thing had started. Two happy men in tuxes, a blonde and a brunette, smiled at someone off camera.

Peter held his breath as Wade looked at the frame, taking a deep breath. “Is this a joke?” he asked, not looking up.

“What the hell kind of fucked-up joke would that be?” Peter asked before he could stop himself.

Wade looked up then, and the shocked expression on his face (probably at profanity coming out of Spider-man’s mouth) actually made Peter smile. Either the smile or the realization that no this was not a joke or both made Wade kind of — fold in on himself. He sat straight down on the floor, still half hidden in his own hallway.

Peter carefully sat down as well, leaving a good amount of space. “I liked our house,” he said, quietly.

Wade turned his head away. Peter almost reached out to him but thought better of it. “It wasn’t just you,” he said as gently as he could. “All that stuff about Christmas, the lego calendar, people from my life being alive again — that was me. Everything I said when we were standing at the void—”

And that made Wade turn back to him suddenly, all the bitterness gone from his face. “I remember,” Peter reassured him. “I meant all of that. That was me. You weren’t making me feel and say those things.”

The flicker of hope Peter had seen in Wade’s eyes when he’d turned around hardened, but he turned fully towards him, facing him finally. “That guy? In there? Not me. You have to understand that. I don’t know who that guy was, maybe me at some point, but I don’t remember that anymore. That guys doesn’t exist, Webs, I’m sorry.”

“You think that was me in there?” Peter countered. “That wasn’t me. Maybe he’s who I’d be if like eighty-percent of the people I love weren’t dead and I wasn’t horribly guilt-ridden, but no — that guy doesn’t exist either.”

Wade didn’t protest, but he also didn’t look convinced. He looked back down at the little frame.

Peter wanted so badly to touch him, but he settled for tapping the frame with one finger. “You said that could be us. You said that before any of the Dream or whatever it was. And I was mean about it because I thought you were just — making fun of me or something.”

Wade met his eyes and he looked somewhat astounded once again, as if he couldn’t believe that was what Peter had thought. It occurred to Peter suddenly that they had possibly been misunderstanding each other for years.

He finally, tentatively, took Wade’s hand in his, and Wade let him. Peter ran his thumb over the scarred, torn skin. It made his chest ache. He suddenly wanted to ask Wade all kinds of questions — what had they done to him that caused this? Did it hurt him? Did he really not remember parts of his own life? Did he want to be all alone on Christmas day or was he like Peter — just couldn’t manage to actually share himself with anyone so he didn’t really connect with anyone?

He remembered their little house. He remembered looking at their tree together, the feeling of not being alone.

“Could we at least give it a shot?” he heard himself ask.

Wade hadn’t pulled his hand away, but he also had made no effort to hold Peter’s hand back. “I don’t know that this is real,” he said in a voice that Peter had heard only once, in the Dream, when Wade had woken up from seeing him fall. “I don’t know that I’m not making this up, too.”

“If you were making this up, wouldn’t your apartment be less shitty?”

Wade didn’t totally laugh but he did smile a little and kind of glanced up at Peter. It made his heart ache again, but it wasn’t altogether unpleasant.

“I think we owe it to ourselves to try.”

He sat there still and silent for a moment, and Peter was half-afraid he was going to close off again, tell him to leave. Then, he saw Wade’s shoulder start to tremble, and he curled further in on himself.

Oh, good going Parker — you made him cry. Exact opposite the desired reaction.

But he suddenly realized that Wade was holding his hand back, squeezing it, actually. That made Peter very brave indeed, and he found himself reaching out with his other hand, cradling Wade’s face and leaning towards him, kissing him full on the lips. It felt familiar but also new in a way that made Peter feel at ease and excited all at once.

“Okay,” Wade whispered against Peter’s lips. He looked up and their eyes locked, Wade’s brimming with tears. “So... can we go to Vegas, too?”

Peter huffed a laugh, his throat tightening. He grinned at Wade. “There you are… I found you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Tumble us!
> 
> thatvixenchick.tumblr.com
> 
> crockzilla.tumblr.com


End file.
